Archive for February, 2016

Picture password is new and innovative way to unlock your Windows 10 / 8 devices by drawing predefined gesture on a selected picture. It seems better suited for touch-screen tablet users, and PC users might choose to turn off picture password logon. In this tutorial we’ll show you 2 simple ways to disable / turn off Picture Password sign-in in Windows 10 and 8.

Once your Picture Password sign-in is disabled, you are unable to create / add a new Picture Password. There is also no option at the logon screen that allows you to sign in with Picture Password, even if you’ve already set up a Picture Password.

Option 1: Disable Picture Password Sign-in with Group Policy

If you are not using Windows 10 / 8 Professional or Enterprise, you will not have access to the Group Policy Editor. Instead you should skip to the Option 2.

Press the Windows key + R to open the Run box. Type gpedit.msc and press Enter.

In the left pane of Local Group Policy Editor, navigate to:Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System -> Logon

In the right pane, you can see a policy named “Turn off picture password sign-in“, double-click on it and set it to Enabled. Finally, click Apply / OK and reboot to apply the changes.

Though the policy description states that this will disable the Picture Password for domain users, it will also disable it for non-domain users.

Option 2: Disable Picture Password Sign-in with Register Editor

Press the Windows key + R to open the Run box. Type regedit and press Enter. This will open the Registry Editor.

Next, navigate to following entry:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System

If the System subkey doesn’t exist, you’ll have to create it.

In right pane, look for an entry named BlockDomainPicturePassword. If it doesn’t exist, right-click on empty space and create a DWORD value and assign name as BlockDomainPicturePassword.

Double-click the BlockDomainPicturePassword value and set it to 1.

If you want to re-enable the Picture Password sign-in later, set the value back to 0.

Close the Registry Editor and reboot the computer. Now Picture logon is disabled and a user can’t set up and use a picture password any longer.

Once you’ve switched to a Microsoft account, Windows encrypts your text password with a reversible encryption algorithm. Therefore, any user of the PC with the administrator privileges can easily recover it (refer to this article). This is a security hole discovered in Windows 10 and 8. For security or privacy reasons, you might think of disabling Microsoft account logon sign-in option.

In this tutorial we’ll show you 3 ways to block or disable Microsoft account, making users unable to add or log on Windows 10/8 with Microsoft account.

The Local Group Policy Editor should open. Navigate to the following location:Computer Configuration > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Local Polices > Security Options

On the right-side, locate the entry named “Accounts: Block Microsoft accounts” and then double-click on it to open its properties.

Under Local Security Setting tab, click on the drop-down box and you can see the following three options:

This policy is disabled

Users can’t add Microsoft accounts

Users can’t add or log on with Microsoft accounts

If you select “Users can’t add Microsoft accounts“, users on the PC will not able to add new Microsoft account. This also means that one can’t switch a local account to Microsoft account. But you can still log on with your existing Microsoft account.

If you select “Users can’t add or log on with Microsoft accounts“, uses on the PC will not able to add new Microsoft account. The existing Microsoft account will disappear from Windows sign-in screen and you’re unable to login with it. So if you’re already using a Microsoft account, you should first switch to local account before applying this policy.

After selecting the right policy, click Apply and then OK. Sign out or restart your computer for the policy to take effect.

Method 2: Block Microsoft Account with Registry Trick

Group Policy Editor is not available in all versions of Windows 10/8. If you don’t have access to Group Policy Editor, you need to block Microsoft account through the Windows Registry. Here’s how:

Press the Windows key + R to open the Run box. Type regedit and hit Enter.

When the Registry Editor opens, navigate to the following keys:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System

In the right pane, you’ll see a value named NoConnectedUser. If the value doesn’t exist, right-click on the empty space to create a DWORD value and name it NoConnectedUser.

Set the NoConnectedUser value to 1 if you just want to block users from switching to Microsoft account, or set it to 3 if you want to block users from either adding or logging on with Microsoft account.

0 = Allow Microsoft Accounts

1 = Users can’t add Microsoft Accounts

3 = Users can’t add or log on with Microsoft accounts

You can now close the Registry Editor window and reboot the machine.

Method 3: Block from Switching to Microsoft Account

Here is another registry trick that could also be used to block users from switching to Microsoft account. Follow these steps:

Press the Windows key + R to open the Run box. Type regedit and hit Enter.

When the Registry Editor opens, navigate to the following keys:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PolicyManager\default\Settings\AllowYourAccount

In the right pane, double-click on the entry “value” and set it to 0.

Log off and log in. Open the Settings charm and select Accounts, you’ll find the option lablelled “Sign in with a Microsoft account instead” is now greyed out. That’s it!

Windows 10 comes with many modern metro style apps installed by default. There are plenty of users who are never going to use modern apps such as Xbox, Weather, Sports, Store, OneNote, Skype, Calendar and Mail, Alarms and Clock, etc. Thankfully, there are ways to completely remove / uninstall pre-installed Windows 10 modern apps.

Method 1: Remove / Uninstall Windows 10 Apps from Settings Charm

Press the Windows + I keys to open the Settings charm.

Click System on the Settings menu.

Select Apps & features from the left pane. A list of all installed apps appears in the right pane. Select the app you want to remove, and click on Uninstall.

If the Uninstall button is grayed out, this is a system app you cannot remove.

While a few of the built-in apps can be simply uninstalled from Settings charm, most of them don’t offer the Uninstall option. For uninstalling these apps, you might have to use Windows PowerShell described in method two.

Method 2: Remove / Uninstall Windows 10 Apps from PowerShell

Using PowerShell cmdlet you can remove / uninstall most of the built-in apps, excluding Cortana, Contact support, Windows Feedback and Microsoft Edge. If you try to remove Microsoft Edge browse, you’ll see an error message saying they can’t be removed.

Copy and paste the following command into the PowerShell prompt. Press Enter.Get-AppxPackage

Once you run the above command, PowerShell will display all modern apps installed on your computer. Scroll down to find the app you want uninstalled. You can easily identify it by looking at the Names of the apps from the list. For instance, the Camera app bears the name of Microsoft.WindowsCamera.

Run the following PowerShell command and you can remove a universal app:Remove-AppxPackage [PackageFullName]

In our example, we would like to remove the Camera app, so type the following command:Remove-AppxPackage Microsoft.WindowsCamera_2016.128.10.0_x64_8wekyb3d8bbwe

Tips:You can copy the package name by click the beginning of the name and drag your mouse to the end to highlight it then right click. Next right click to paste the package name you copied into the Command Prompt.

Fortunately, the Remove-AppxPackage command also allows you to use the wildcard characters (such as *) to find the package. So you can simply type the keywords of the app to uninstall it. Here is a list of PowerShell commands to uninstall the universal apps that are pre-installed in Windows 10:

Remove all Modern Apps for the current account only:Get-AppXPackage | Remove-AppxPackage

Remove all Modern Apps from all the accounts on your Windows system:Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage

A Recovery Drive is a bootable USB drive that can be used to repair or recover your computer, in the event it won’t start normally. Like its predecessor, Windows 10 also lets users create a bootable USB recovery drive easily. In this tutorial we’ll show you how to create and use a Windows 10 USB Recovery Drive.

If you are creating a basic Recovery Drive, you can use a 1GB USB flash drive. However, if you choose to include the system files, which allows you to use the Recovery Drive to reinstall Windows, you’ll want at least a 16GB USB flash drive. Note that a Recovery Drive prepared on a 32-bit version of Windows 10 can’t be used on 64-bit Windows 10 and vice versa.

Part 1: Create A Windows 10 USB Recovery Drive?

Press the Windows key + X to open the WinX menu. Click Control Panel.

Select the View by option at the top right of the Control Panel. Set it to Large icons. Next click Recovery.

Select “Create a recovery drive“.

Click Yes when you see the User Account Control prompt.

The Recovery Drive Creation Wizard should open. Make sure the “Back up system files to the recovery drive” option is checked if you want to use the Recovery Drive for reinstalling Windows. Click Next.

Select the connected USB drive before clicking Next. Once again, we want to remind you that the selected drive will be completely erased.

When you see the confirmation screen, click Create button and it will format the drive and begin copying files to the drive.

If you’re creating a basic Recovery Drive, the process will take just a few minutes. If you create a dedicated Recovery Drive including the system files, it could take as long as an hour.

When the process is complete, click Finish to close the Recovery Drive wizard.

Part 2: Use A Windows 10 USB Recovery Drive

If your computer fails to boot, stuck on automatic repair loop, unable to restore or reset your PC to factory defaults due to forgotten password, you will need your Recovery Drive to fix it.

Insert your previously-created USB Recovery Drive into your computer and restart. Your computer should boot from the Recovery Drive automatically. (If it doesn’t, you may need to change its boot order.)

Once booted to the Recovery Drive, you can access to the Advanced Startup Tools. From here, you can do several things to help troubleshoot your computer, such as perform a factory reset, reset / refresh Windows, restore from a system image, launch a command line tool to repair your losing system files or fix the boot issues, etc.

Lost your Surface password? Locked out of your Surface RT tablet? At present, there is no any password recovery utility available to Windows RT system, so you might have to reset your tablet to factory defaults. This tutorial explains how to remove or reset Surface RT password by performing a factory reset.

Reset / Remove Forgotten Password on Surface RT Tablet

Windows RT integrates a built-in rescue method that allows you to reset the OS from the login screen. Here’s how to restore Surface RT tablet to factory default condition, without knowing your password:

From the Windows login screen, click the Power icon at the bottom right of the screen. Holding down the SHIFT key on your keyboard and then click Restart.

If your tablet doesn’t have a physical keyboard, you need to open the on-screen keyboard in order to access the SHIFT key. In the lower-left corner of your screen, you should see the Ease of Access icon. Click on that icon and then select the “On-Screen Keyboard” option. The on-screen keyboard will open. From there tap / click the Shift key once, then click on the Power icon and select Restart.

The tablet will reboot and take you to the troubleshooting option screen. Click Troubleshoot.

Click on “Reset your PC” and then click Next.

You’ll now be prompted with two options. “Keep my files” and “Remove everything“. In this case, I click “Keep my files” as I want to keep the personal files intact. No matter whichever option you pick, all of your system settings will return to their defaults and apps will be uninstalled.

Click Reset. Now, you can sit back and relax. Windows will now start the long process of resetting your entire PC, all files, software, users, and apps you have installed will be gone, and the PC will be like the first day it was purchased.

After resetting, you’ll be presented with a nice clean install of Windows RT with the best performance. Perform a factory reset is always a good move if you’re locked out of your Windows admin account, or plan to sale or donate your tablet.

Do you need remote access to your home or work computer? Remote Desktop Connection is a nice feature included with every Windows installation, which makes it easy to access your computer remotely from another computer. By default, Remote Desktop is disabled for security reasons. In this tutorial we’ll show you how to set up and use Remote Desktop Connection in Windows 10.

Part 1: Turn On Remote Desktop Connection in Windows 10

In order to set up Remote Desktop Connection, follow these step-by-step instructions:

Press the Windows key + X to open the Quick Access menu. Click System from the menu that pops up.

The next window will show you all of the basic specifications of your computer such as model number, CPU configuration, installed memory, etc. Click on the “Remote settings” link on the left pane.

Tick the “Allow remote connections to this computer” checkbox.

If you’ll be connecting to this computer from a system that’s running any version of Windows older than Windows 7, then do not check the “Allow connections only from computers running Remote Desktop with Network Level Authentication” checkbox.

To grant Remote Desktop access permissions to a user account, click on “Select Users” on the bottom right of the window. This opens the Remote Desktop Users dialog box. Click on Add button to add your user account to the list.

Note:Remote desktop does not allow a user with a blank password to logon, so make sure your user account is password protected.

Once this is done, you will now be able to connect to this computer using the Remote Desktop Connection.

Part 2: Connect to Your PC Remotely

Now you can connect to your computer from another Windows PC, by following these steps:

Press the Windows key + R to open the Run box. Type mstsc and hit Enter.

You will be prompted to enter the login credentials of the Windows account you’ve granted Remote Desktop access to. Click OK and Windows Firewall may give you a warning. Just ignore it and click Yes and your remote connection session will start.

Did you accidentally deleted a vital system file? Windows failed to load because of missing or corrupt system files? In this tutorial we’ll show you how to repair corrupt or missing system files using the Windows built-in command line utility – SFC (System File Checker). SFC is built into Windows 10/8/7/Vista that can scan your system files for corruption or modification. If a file is missing or modified, it will automatically replace that file with the correct version.

When your Windows system won’t load normally, start it in Safe Mode or boot off Windows Setup DVD, and you can also use the SFC command to repair corrupt or missing system files, without having to reinstall the whole OS.

Note:Though these guides are written for Windows 10 and Windows 8, a very similar process will work for Windows 7, Vista or XP.

Method 1: Repair System Files After Logging into Windows

Open an elevated Command Prompt. To do this, press the Windows key + X to open the Quick Access menu and then select “Command Prompt (Admin)“.

In the Command Prompt, run the following command:sfc /scannow

Just keep waiting & be patient because running this command will take quite a bit of time. The scan results will be shown after this process is finished. If you see a “Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files but was unable to fix some of them” message, try reboot into Safe Mode and run the SFC command again, or try the method below.

Method 2: Repair System Files Offline When Windows Won’t Boot

If Windows cannot start because some of system files are corrupted or missing, just boot your computer from Windows Installation DVD and you can repair the system files offline. If you don’t have a Windows Installation DVD, you can borrow one from a friend or use a Recovery Drive created in any computer running Windows 10/8.

Insert the Windows Installation DVD and set up your computer to boot from optical drive (You might need to change the boot priority in the UEFI / BIOS). Press a key when prompted to boot from DVD.

Once booted to the DVD, you’ll see the familiar Windows installation language-selection screen. Click Next.

Click on “Repair your computer“.

When you are asked to choose an option for how you want to continue. Click Troubleshoot.

Next click “Advanced options“.

On the next screen, click “Command Prompt“.

In the Command Prompt, use the dir command to find the drive letter of your Windows partition. In my example, C:\ is the System Reserved partition and D:\ is my actual Windows partition.

Now run the SFC command to repair your Windows installation. It will scan all your system files, identify those that are corrupt or missing and try to fix the problems it find.sfc /scannow /offbootdir=D:\ /offwindir=D:\windows

Remember to replace D:\ with the actual drive letter of your Windows partition.

When the scan is complete, remove the installation DVD and restart your computer to check if your problem is fixed. To perform the recovery experiment, I intentionally deleted a system file c:\windows\system32\sechc.exe, and the file can be restored successfully by running the SFC command.

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In previous post we’ve covered 3 ways to lock a Windows computer. If you are unable to lock your Windows system or want to disable the computer lock option completely, here’s how you can enable / disable lock workstation feature in Windows 10, 8, 7 and Vista. When the lock feature is disabled, you will be unable to lock your computer by either pressing Windows + L, Ctrl + Alt + Del, or clicking the Lock option from the Start menu.

How to Enable / Disable Lock Workstation Feature?

Press the Windows + R key combination to bring up a run box, type gpedit.msc and hit Enter.

When the Local Group Policy Editor opens navigate to:User Configuration\System\Ctrl+Alt+Del Options

On the right hand side you should see a setting called “Remove Lock Computer“. Double-click on it.

Then change the radio button over to Enabled if you want to disable the lock workstation feature.

To enable this feature later, just change it to Disabled or Not Configured. Click OK to save your changes.

Now you will need to enforce the updated policy to take effect on your PC, to do this press the Windows + R key combination, when the Run box open run:gpupdate /force

Once you press enter you Local Group Policy will be automatically updated. Windows will no longer show the lock option when that you press the Windows key + L or Ctrl+Alt+Delete keyboard combination.

No matter what version of Windows you are running, you can find the lock option in the Start Menu (or Start Screen) that allows you to lock your computer. In this tutorial we’ll show you 2 ways to disable / remove the lock option from Windows 10, 8 and 7 Start menu.

Method 1: Remove the Lock Option with Group Policy

Follow this method and you can remove the lock option from the user tile menu on the Start menu (or Start screen) in Windows 10, 8.1 or 8.

Press the Windows key + R to open the Run box. Type gpedit.msc and press Enter.

When the Local Group Policy Editor opens, expand the tree to the following path:Local Computer Policy\Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\File Explorer

In the right-hand pane you should now see a variety of settings. Double-click on the “Show lock in the user tile menu” setting and its properties screen will open.

Set it to Disabled and click OK.

Now close the Local Group Policy Editor window. You’ll see the lock option is disabled or removed from the Start menu.

Method 2: Remove the Lock Option with Registry Hack

If the Group Policy Editor is not available in your computer or you’re running Windows 7, then use this registry hack to disable the lock option from your Windows Start menu.

Press the Windows key + R to open the Run box. Type regedit and press Enter.

When the Registry Editor opens, browse down to the following key:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System

Right-click on the System key on the left pane and select New -> DWORD (32 bit) Value.

Name it DisableLockWorkstation and set the value to 1 in order to disable the lock option in the Start menu.

If you want to show / enable the lock option later on, just change the value to 0.

Close the Registry Editor and you will see the lock option turns gray or disappeared from the Start menu.

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My frequently used programs are missing from the Start menu. Can this be corrected and if so how? Thanks in advance.

By default, Windows keeps track of programs you use frequently and puts them on the Start menu (or Start screen) for convenience. For privacy purposes, some of you may want to clear the most used programs from the list. In this tutorial we’ll show you how to hide / clear the most frequently / recently used programs in Windows 10, 8 and 7.

The first part is for Windows 10 users and the second is for Windows 8 / 8.1 users, so you will have to scroll down if you use Windows 7 – the last part is for this operating system.

Part 1: Clear Most Used Programs from Windows 10 Start Menu

Press the Windows key + I to bring up the Settings app. If you’re using a tablet without a keyboard, click the Start button and then select Settings.

Click on Personalization.

At the Personalization window, click on the Start tab on the left-hand side. On the right pane, you’ll see a few options for configuring what is shown on the Start Menu and how the Start Menu is displayed.

From there, set toggle button under “Show most used apps” to Off in order to make Start menu hide the apps you use often.

Part 2: Clear Most Used Programs from Windows 8 Start Screen

Right-click on an empty space on the Taskbar and select Properties.

Click on the Jump Lists tab, uncheck the “Store recently opened programs” box.

Click Apply and then click OK.

Part 3: Clear Most Used Programs from Windows 7 Start Menu

Right-click on an empty space on the Taskbar and select Properties.

Click on the Start Menu tab, uncheck the “Store and display recently opened programs in the Start menu” box.

If you also want to hide your recently opened documents/files from the Start menu, uncheck the “Store and display recently opened items in the Start menu and the taskbar” box as well.

Click Apply and then click OK.

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